Day 105 - Looking for daycares

My mom has officially decided that she will be moving out the week after Allie's first birthday. With that announcement, Brad and I decided that we needed to start researching immediately to see the conditions and waiting lists of daycares around town. Brad took the day off since he had a sleep study last night, so I decided to take the day off too and visit some daycares. A few surprises to us - most daycares have now turned into "learning centers" and that made me a little happier....until, we went to our first establishment.

I will keep the names of the scary ones quiet, but the first place we went to - we had high hopes as we pulled into the parking lot. It was nice and big on the outside and we had heard good things about the learning style...we walked in and I was immediately put off. The building on the inside seemed old and just...had a cold feeling about it. As we walked around, we were able to see all the rooms and I just didn't have a good feeling in my stomach when we went to the nursery and saw 5 or 6 babies in swings that were going to high and so fast that the baby could have stopped breathing and no one would have known about it. They were moving so fast and high that you couldn't tell what baby was in the swing...her baby, my baby, his baby? And the caregivers didn't seem interested in interacting with the babies. I didn't say anything until we left and then I mentioned to Brad, "I don't know if I like that place..." hesitantly. He immediately responded, "I hated it - we will not be taking her here." Whew...

I immediately turned around to my mom, who was in the back seat with Allie and said, "You're going to have to just live with us forever." The thought of leaving Allie in that environment made my heart very, very sad....depressed even...and I took my medication today!!

I must say as the day went on the learning centers got better and better. It was probably a good thing to see the worst one first...and by the end, we had found our learning center. Allie will be one when she first has to go and I consider us very lucky. We do have some options to leave her with friends of friends that are currently watching one other baby, but Brad is adimant on the socialization aspect. The center we finally chose is a little out of the way, but worth the extra effort in some of the things we noticed. As soon as you walk in to the center, they ask you apply hand sanitizer...in the transition room, which is where Allie would be (they want to make sure the kids can walk well before moving them into the one year old room), they document what time they eat, what time they nap, how long they nap for, times that they have dirty diapers...and follow the schedule that YOU set up for your child. If you want your child to have an eat, wake, sleep schedule, they follow it. The one year old room obviously has a different schedule, but I was super happy with the way things were run there.

I think that as she gets older, the idea of daycares or learning centers will warm up to me, but for now, I am happy we can leave her at home with her Mammaw...who can't seem to get enough of Allie.

Here's Allie with one of her favorite toys...Elmo gets shoved into her mouth on a daily basis.